Stilled in CherryStone
by Princess Caveia1234
Summary: The town of Roselake was suppose to be peaceful and friendly place but that was until a dangerous person began terrorizing the innocent citizens. Thankfully a trio of friends with special "gifts" are around to stop him! Will they be able to collect enough clues find out who this mysterious person is? Rated T: Violence, Some Language, Suggestive Themes, Drug-Related Situations.
1. Chapter 1: Red and Gold

It was a quiet afternoon. As usual, I had my warmed vanilla bean coffee in hand and with the other I held a hard covered book I am currently reading at the moment.

The only sound being produced in the dining room area was the ongoing ticking of the olive green vintage clock hung on the beige colored wall.

Seconds later, my ear hears the sound of a single shoe being scraped across the concrete outside my home and then the silence returns immediately afterwords.

I glanced up, closed my book and quietly rose from my chair.

I kept hearing a repetitive noise approaching my doorstep, which lead me to grab my gun attached to the underside of my table.

"La la la, la la la, la laaaa..." the familiar voice had sung.

I sighed with relief. It must be the nice woman who works at the bakery along with Sandy, her boss. Sometimes she helps the mailman deliver his mail whenever she has nothing more to do at the shop. I hid the weapon behind my back and open the door to greet her.

As expected, she wore her usual work uniform that differs each time she comes by. Pink colored long sleeve denim romper that perfectly matched her bright and happy-go-lucky mood. Gold hoop earrings and glossy pink lip gloss.

"Ah, hello sir! Were you just leaving?" she asks me, smiling a little bit too hard for herself.

Her vibrant violet hair tied in two curly pigtails slightly fell off her shoulder when she slowly tilt her head waiting for me to respond.

"Or... did you knew the exact time I was gonna come by to give you your extra special mail today?" she dug in her mailbag and tossed a handful of confetti at my face.

I fanned the particles from my breathing space. "Uh thanks, Oona. Why do you say it's 'extra special'? It didn't come in a box, did it?"

"Nah, the boxy ones are for Old Man Grouper only! You just have a wooshy-woosh package in here from maybe... Cherrystone perhaps?" she squints to read the name written in script with shimmering gold ink on a burgundy colored envelope.

"Nonny."

I quickly pushed my gun in my back pocket and grabbed the package. I examined the large envelope; notifying how it weights and making sure nothing suspicious is wrong with it... oddly enough I do hear a weird liquidy splash inside and that's all.

"Thank y-"

"Your so welcome! Have a nice evening, sir! See you tomorrow!" she shouted while she skipped away merrily.

I closed my front door and carried the envelope to my table. I turned it to the backside with a picture of a small target, below it are the words that read:

'Shoot Here; I know you have a gun.'

This is quite mysterious. Perhaps this is a new type of training from Gil? Might as well humor him, I suppose. I took my weapon from my back pocket and point it directly at the drawn-out target. I pulled the trigger.

I watched the bullet pierce the center of the target that lies in front of my doorstep. It read:

"Your a loose canon, aren't ya?"

Then the strangest thing happened: The envelope burst like a party balloon and out came dark red liquid, shooting out directly at my face and on my clothes!

"GAH!" I shrieked as I shield my face with my hands and my arms. Once it finally stopped I lowered my hands and huffed furiously. What the hell was that?!

I dashed in my room before anyone sees me and closed the door. I placed my gun on the maple coffee table and unbuttoned my leather jacket with lightning speed. Soon my nose captured an odd metallic smell that made me want to vomit. Apparently this isn't fake blood...

I took off all my clothes, threw my white towel around my waist, grabbed my rag and soap then raced down the hallway to the showers.

There were a few guys occupied in the stalls but I found room for me eventually. I let out a relieved sigh when I felt the warm water wash off the blood that made contact with my skin. Gross.

While I was trying to bathe, some guy was staring straight at me with a very unsettling grin on his face. I got uncomfortable so I said,

"You wanna scrub my back or something?" I remarked bluntly. The dude appeared as if he couldn't hear me and kept staring. "Can. I. Help. You?" I said as slow as possible.

The dark skinned male snapped out of it and chuckled. He must be slow or something...

"Ey, what's good Gil? You just came back from your police work?" he says, referring to the disgusting blood dripping off my body.

Yes, I often come to school with less than a few splatters of blood on my clothes whenever I return from my "job" but this amount of blood on me makes it look like I slaughtered someone like a mad man!

If the dean saw this, he would've confiscated my gun and sent me to prison for boardline sadistic behaviors. It's bad enough he already think I enjoy hurting others. Which I don't!

"Who you shot, bro?" the man next to my shower asks.

"I shot a manila envelope full of blood." I deadpan with an eye roll. "You probably have no idea what that is, do you?" I quizzed with an raised eyebrow.

"I know blood but a manila envelope, I don't know what that is."

"I'm not surprised. Anyways, I was in the middle of showering which calls for a thing called privacy, something your clearly not familiar with. So uh, bye." I slam the small window that separates us and continued to clean up.

Whoever did this must've killed a person or an animal to get that much blood pressurized in a packet like that. I guess it's too early to suspect anyone yet.

After I shower I'll go out and find some evidence leading to the criminal. Can anyone in Roselake College ever behave without murdering someone?

As I scrubbed my arm with my rag, a piece of gold paper with black writing dropped to the bottom of the shower. What might this be?

The only word or should I say, name, I saw was "Grouper" on the glistening gold piece of paper that was waiting for me to collect. I walk over to the large puddle of blood to search for any other evidence. I found nothing.

This is sickening! Is someone after the poor guy? Should I contact him to see if he's alright? Okay Molly calm down, relax, breathe. Everything will be fine.

The students here should have some knowledge of that Grouper was my old teacher so perhaps they were poking harmless fun at me.

I lift my arm to my nostrils to smell the strange red substance that shot out the manila envelope a few minutes ago and almost fainted.

Is... is this... b-blood?! REAL BLOOD? From an actual human?! I let out a loud scream that reached the top of my lungs and raced to my bathroom sink to wash it all off.

I paused. Hold on I can't do that yet! This right here is evidence in its purest form. As much as I want this off of me as soon as possible, I have to see who's blood it is and how it was mailed to my room.

I sat on the floor and crossed my legs. I closed my eyes so I could concentrate until I saw a small glow of light.

I see... only darkness and...

A simple knock extract me from my vision, which is a very painful process. I gasp sharply to catch my breath then called out.

"Mhm?"

"What's the matter in there? You saw another ant crawling on your wall?" a female voice teased.

I felt my cheek flush from embarrassment. Oh, why must I be so paranoid over everything? Everyone knows how badly I freak out over the smallest and most insignificant things and they tend to make fun of me for that.

I swear it's not my fault I react this way! It's just my disconnection with reality that leaves my five senses to become defective.

Oh gosh I'm starting to sound like a total robot now. Sigh. Since peeking into the DNA was a total bust, let's see where this paper originally came from. Surely it has some kind of fingerprints left on it, unless it was taken off due to being saturated in blood.

But why am I a victim as well? I haven't had much contact with Old Man Grouper in a while. I suppose it's not much of a threat but when I find out who the guy or girl is, I'll simply report them. For ruining my room, my clothes and using Paul Grouper's good name in a messed up way!

I folded my legs, held the paper with both of my hands and closed my eyes once again.

Princess Caveia's Corner: Something strange is a-floating at Roselake University! Who might this person be? Stay tuned for more clues! See you next chapter!

Random Notes: Honestly, I love how I connected these three POVs from shooting the manila, watching it pop, and reading the gold paper. That was just so cool to me.


	2. Chapter 2: The Message For Death

Nonny waited patiently for his best friend, Gil, to meet him at the cafeteria for some lunch at noon. He hoped Gil was the one behind the "surprise" package he received and not some notorious stranger. As he was busy reading today's special, a hand pushed down the menu. Nonny's clover green eyes meet up with the young man's sapphire blues.

"Good afternoon my partner in crime." he greets his glasses-wearing buddy as he took his seat. Leaning back on the chair he sighed.

"Sorry I was late. Strangely enough, someone decided to mess with me this morning. I'll catch whoever it was." he says coolly.

"You too, huh?" Nonny replied with a chuckle. "I thought you were behind the bloody mess the whole time."

While Nonny seems to be in a joking mood today, Gil wasn't. He frowned at him and says, "That better have been a British term you just used on me Nonny. You should know I wouldn't do any prank that involves real blood. Disgusting. Wait 'til I find that crook."

Nonny could already sense Gil's temperament rising but he must know who was actually behind the whole scheme. He waited for the right moment to bring back the unsettling situation they had both dealt with.

"By the way," Nonny started to speak again, "Did you happen to find a piece of gold paper with words written on it? I found one myself." he asked as he went in his pocket to pull out a small paper that appears to have been ripped from the edges. "It says 'I will'-"

"I am aware of what it says, I can read you know." Gil sneered at him. "Can you tell me what it means?"

"If I knew I would've told you right off the bat. Do you have a piece by any chance?"

Gil couldn't help but chuckle, "Ah, I see what your trying to do. So, the sicko we're looking for loves to do puzzles huh?" he says thoughtfully as he connected his piece to Nonny's then read the words aloud. "I will... kill...?"

"Yours only say 'kill'?"

"Evidently." Gil responded curtly. "That means someone here or outside the campus has the victim's name. But who?"

Nonny took a brief second to think for a moment. "I don't know but what I do know is, we best find out who before it's too late. We wouldn't want any more blood on our hands again, now do we?"

Gil impatiently rapped his knuckles on the table and huffed, "Care to explain how we can search for the suspect or victim?"

"Well, the only tactic I can think of relies heavily on the search for any traces of large amounts of blood."

Nonny glanced to the left then the right to make sure no one was watching the two. He leans over to Gil and whispered,

"Can you track it down without getting caught?"

Gil smirked at his friend, greatly amused that he was okay with breaking the strict "No Using their Gifts on Campus" rule their dean had established specifically for those two. Nonny was a bit more like the good guy who listens to his superiors while Gil disobeyed them.

"I thought you'd never ask-"

Just as Gil was about to raise his hand to control his supernatural abilities, the doors to the cafeteria was kicked open by a tall angry man with wild hair on his head the shade of deep red and bulging muscles that can be seen through his suit. He marched into the room and yank Gil by his shirt collar.

"Gil! Nonny! My office, now!" the dean, Timothy Crimson, boomed into their ears, as usual. His voice echoing against the white walls. The students in the cafeteria fell silent. They were use to this behavior the dean displays on a daily basis and tried their best to mind their business or else they would get an earful of lectures... again. Whenever he leaves, they are allowed to talk.

Gil, on the other hand, isn't afraid of the dean like every else appears to be. He tends to poke fun at him and do whatever he can to get the dean very furious because he knows the redheaded man can't do a thing about it. Gil narrowed his eyes at the man and crossed his arms.

"What seems to be the problem, Timmy?"

The dean clenched his teeth at the name Gil gave him out of mockery.

"I have no time for your foolishness!" he yells in his ears again, almost making him go deaf that time.

He turned and grabbed Nonny's shirt as well then dragged the two out of the cafeteria.

Somewhere at another part of the University, inside a vast office filled with large shelves of old dusty books, a couple of desks, a few burgundy suede couches with matching chairs for both the students and deans to take a load off, and dark velvet carpeting to give the room a more cozy feel to it.

The female dean, Vivian Bourque was filing away at her nails as she listened to Molly spaz out about the strange package that was delivered to her room a while ago. On and on she spoke about someone stalking her or perhaps warning her something bad will happen.

Eventually after listening to her for an half and hour straight, Vivian felt that she heard enough and tried to calm Molly down a bit.

"Has it ever crossed your mind that it could be-"

"I mean I wanted to assume it was a joke but what if it wasn't! Sometimes you have to take things like this seriously because when you really think about it, no one would go out their way to fill an envelope full of real blood, then send it to me along with Paul Grouper's last name in there."

Vivian let out an exasperated sigh and slam down her nail file, "Please for the love of christ, Molly, calm down! Your daily freak out may strip you from your health or your life. There's no need to overreact over every little thing."

Molly breathed out softly and ran her fingers through her hair. "O-overeacting?"

"Yes. Overreacting. Indeed." Vivian nodded. "Look around you Molly. This generation is changing by the decade and kids are getting more and more creative with their immature pranks. Not that I'm saying this was okay, but you cannot wrongfully accuse students of doing these kind of actions such as murdering. Just listen to yourself."

Molly took in a deep breath while clenching her fists. "You're right. I apologize." she shakily breathed out.

"I am right, sweetie." Molly frowned and began to walk out the exit to the office until Vivian stopped her. "Wait, you know I wouldn't let you leave my office upset. Mr. Crimson and I would like to have a word with you and two other victims who went through the same incident."

Timothy kicked the door open and dragged in the two boys he was handling.

"I sure do. Take a seat boys." the dean says as he tossed them on the extra leather seats in front of Vivian's desk.

"A-are we in trouble?" Molly asks nervously.

The male dean gave her head a rough pat and chuckled, "You don't have to worry about anything that involves trouble, Molly. These two on the other hand..." he says as he glared at the boys. "You need to avoid them."

Gil crossed his arms and sighed heavily, "Just tell us why we're here so I can go." he says, demanding to know the meaning of being carried to the office for what seems to be no reason at all.

Timothy took his seat next to Vivian and stared at the three students. "We wanted to-"

"See if you all received gold piece of paper in that package." Vivian spoke up quickly before he could say another word more.

Confused, Timothy turns to her. "What?" he questions curiously. He remembers Vivian mentioning they were suppose to apologize for the incident and that was all. This new information she wanted to obtain seems quite obscure and out of place.

"Trust me on this." she whispered to him then smiled at the students. "Well... do you?" she inquired.

"Uh, sure? Nonny and I happen to find one of our own." Gil took his piece from his pocket and threw it on the desk. Nonny did the same.

Molly carefully placed her piece on the desk and gasped as she read the words aloud. "I will... kill... Grouper?"

As soon as Molly began to tremble, Vivian rolls her eyes and inwardly groaned. She had more than enough of Molly's many appointments to know where this was going.

"Oh my god! So it IS true!" Molly exclaimed, her eyes quickly filling up with tears.

"Relax, no one is going to kill him. Probably some punk waiting to get some kind of reaction from us. It's not going to happen by the way, I don't get paid to entertain attention whores." Timothy remarks as he shuffled through his batch of papers.

"It seems you were particularly targeted and we apologize for the mishap that occurred this morning. All personal items that were either destroyed or ruined in the process can definitely be replaced." Vivian tells them as she handed out the replacement forms.

"That's it?" Nonny says after the long pause.

"Yeah what else were you expecting, your embarrassing bad reputation being erased from your permanent records?" he laughed. "Like that'll happen!"

"Aw man! You suck!" Gil barked at him.

"I suck? You should be lucky this college had accepted you despite the trouble you cause in high school!" Timothy retorted.

Vivian cleared her throat to grab back their attention. "Ahem, we'll handle the situation and try to look through the cameras so we can pinpoint who the culprit was. You three may be excused for the time being. I shall inform you when the person is caught."

The three quietly exit the room without a single word exchanged. Once they had left the office, Vivian opened her file cabinet and took out a very old folder from many years ago. As she flipped through it, dust floated in the atmosphere, causing her to sneeze. Timothy looks over to her with curiosity and crossed his muscular arms.

"What's with the address folders?"

"I've told Molly not to think much about the incident this morning. Unfortunately she had made me a bit worried too. I didn't want her to get too worked up because you know she can't control herself properly." she stops at a page and slides her finger across the worn out paper. "We gotta look into this before someone gets hurt."

Timothy nodded his head. "Understood. Is there anything you'd like me to do?

"I fear Paul Grouper might be in trouble. I can't believe someone in town wants him dead. Who would ever wish that on him?" she says, mostly thinking aloud to herself. "Do you remember Grouper by any chance?"

"Yes I do. Everyone in town knows who he is. He practically raised us all!" Timothy smiled as he stroke his scruffy chin. "I can't imagine life without him. I'll never forget the day he fixed my toy train when I was around six or seven. I still have it back at my place."

Vivian has been at his house before and she saw the toy train on top of his fireplace. The vibrant primary colors of paint were still intact and unchipped. Not even a single speck of dust. Clearly he had been taking care of it ever since Grouper mended the toy for him.

"I'll never forget the time he taught me how to solve problems for the troubled people in my time." she sighed and so did Timothy. Suddenly Vivian had an idea and scooped her coat in her hands.

"Classes are almost done for the day, might as well visit him to see how he's holding up. I can even cook some of my leftovers so we can dine together."

The redheaded dean shrugged his shoulders. "Sure, I'm not doing anything later. I was most likely going to make sure those two boys stay out of trouble. You can't leave them alone for a second without blowing something up."

"Oh give the boys a break, Mr. Crimson. You know if they don't use their powers enough, they'll never unlock their potential... or something along the lines, I have no idea how they work. With that in mind, I'm not risking it and neither should you, let them explore their uh, gifts a little. Also, please don't bring that negativity along with you."

"Of course." Timothy nodded as he leaves the office.

Vivian looks at the time for a second before realizing how late she would be if she waste another minute getting where she needs to go. She quickly put on her coat, grabbed her keys off the desk and rushed out the office, closing the door behind her.

A booted foot stops the door before it could completely close.

Princess Caveia's Corner: I honestly don't know why this took me a while to update another chapter because this chapter was super short! The more I plan out this story, the more I like it! I can't wait to get to the exciting parts! Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Review and Smile! :D P.S The next story I'll update will be The Bummer Summer! (hopefully)


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